Puigdemont: “sacrificed”
Puigdemont’s admission that his position is weakened by the deferal of his nomination in a private mobile message to ERC’s Antoni Comín made public
JxCat and ERC had just resumed talks to rebuild unity and decide on strategy to move ahead with investiture of Charles Puigdemont as president when four private messages by Puigdemont were made public in which he admitted being “sacrificed” by the Republicans. A cameraman from Tele 5’s “El programa d’Ana Rosa” had filmed the screen of Antoni Comin’s mobile phone at an event on Tuesday evening in Leuven, Belgium. Puigdemont was writing some hours after the House Speaker, Roger Torrent, had delayed the parliamentary session which was to invest the president. “I suppose you can see that this is all over. We have been sacrificed, or at least I have. You will all be ministers (I expect and hope) but I’m the sacrifice as Tardà suggested,” the text to Comín continuedLater yesterday, Puigdemont criticised the “illegal” publication of a private conversation but in another message made public confessed that he was “human,” and that although there where times when he was tempted to give up, he continued in his work. “I am also the President and will not give in or back out, out of respect, appreciation and commitment to the citizens and the country.”
In part of the original message he had claimed that the tactics of the Moncloa had taken the day but that at least it may mean that those imprisoned could soon be released. The Minister of the Interior, Juan Ignacio Zoido speaking from Madrid, said he would not “negotiate with prisoners.”
Tension between JxCat and ERC continued yesterday but with Madrid’s reaction to the leak, by the end of the day, some progress had been made in resuming negotiations.